Steve Jobs: An obituary

Steven Paul Jobs, 56, died on Wednesday at his home with his
family. The co-founder and, until last August, CEO of Apple Inc was
the most celebrated person in technology and business on the
planet. No one will take issue with the official Apple statement
that "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

It had taken a while for the world to realise what an amazing
treasure Steve Jobs was. But Jobs knew it all along. That was
part of what was so unusual about him. From at least the time he
was a teenager, Jobs had a freakish chutzpah. At age 13, he called
up the head of HP and cajoled him into giving Jobs free computer
chips. It was part of a lifelong pattern of setting and fulfilling
astronomical standards. Throughout his career, he was fearless in
his demands. He kicked aside the hoops that everyone else had to
negotiate and straightforwardly and brazenly pursued what he
wanted. When he got what he wanted -- something that occurred with
astonishing frequency -- he accepted it as his birthright.

If Jobs were not so talented, if he were not so visionary, if he
were not so canny in determining where others had failed in
producing great products and what was necessary to succeed, his
pushiness and imperiousness would have made him a figure of
mockery.

But Steve Jobs was that talented, visionary and
determined. He combined an innate understanding of technology with
an almost supernatural sense of what customers would respond to.
His conviction that design should be central to his products not
only produced successes in the marketplace but elevated design in
general, not just in consumer electronics but everything that
aspires to the high end.

As a child of the sixties who was nurtured in Silicon Valley, his career merged the two strains in a way that
reimagined business itself. And he did it as if he didn't give a
damn who he pissed off. He could bully underlings and corporate
giants with the same contempt. But when he chose to charm, he was
almost irresistible. His friend, Heidi Roizen, once gave advice to
a fellow Apple employee that the only way to avoid falling prey to
the dual attacks of venom and charm at all hours was not to answer
the phone. That didn't work, the employee said, because Jobs lived
only a few blocks away. Jobs would bang on the door and not go
away.

For most of his 56 years, Steve Jobs banged on doors, but for
the past dozen or so very few were closed to him. He was the most
adored and admired business executive on the planet, maybe in
history. Presidents and rock stars came to see him. His fans waited
up all night to gain entry into his famous "Stevenote" speeches at
Macworld, almost
levitating with anticipation of what Jobs might say. Even his
peccadilloes and dark side became heralded.

His accomplishments were unmatched. People who can claim credit
for game-changing products -- iconic inventions that become
embedded in the culture and answers to Jeopardy questions decades
later -- are few and far between. But Jobs has had not one, not
two, but six of these breakthroughs, any one of which
would have made for a magnificent career. In order: the Apple II,
the Macintosh, the movie studio Pixar, the iPod, the iPhone and the
iPad. (This doesn't even include the consistent, brilliant
improvements to the Macintosh operating system, or the Apple retail
store juggernaut.) Had he lived a natural lifespan, there would
have almost certainly been more.

Behind any human being is a mystery: What happened to make him
… him? When considering extraordinary people, the question
becomes an obsession. What produces the sort of people who create
world-changing products, inspire by example and shock by justified
audacity, and tag billions of minds with mimetic graffiti? What led
to his dead-on product sense, his haughty confidence, his ability
to simultaneously hector and inspire people to do their best
work?